Eat Your Own Children’s Shoes
You know what bugs us around 13GNE HQ? The phrase: “The cobbler’s children have no shoes.”
You know the idea, the mechanic with the worst running car, or a painter with a shoddily painted house, or an accountant who can’t file his taxes on time. The obvious reason is that they’re all too busy serving their customers to have the time to devote to their own stuff. The second most obvious reason would be that’s what they do for a day job, why would they want to do it in their free time?
Fail.
As a business owner, it’s not a day job, it’s an always job. And, you should be an example of your own best client. Fix your car, paint your house, do your taxes… awesomely.
To one degree or another, every sale is an exercise in trust. The client is making a leap of faith that you have or will be providing a good or service that meets or exceeds their expectations. How can a potential client trust you if you don’t practice what you preach? If you think you can get away with it, you’re not giving your clients enough credit by hoping they won’t notice the cognitive dissonance.
You know what else bugs us around 13GNE HQ? The phrase: “Eating your own dog food.”
It’s a stupid phrase.
However, we love the meaning. “Dogfooding” is the idea that if your company expects customers to buy your products or services, you should also be willing to use those products or services yourselves. You are your own client testimonial.
Our concept of “Business Design” includes perfecting every single point of interaction between your company and your client… including the outward effects of your belief and confidence in your products or services. A mechanic with an awesome car sitting out front of his garage, a house painter with the best looking house on the block, an accountant who… well, I don’t know what you do if you’re an accountant (do the hell out of your taxes, then frame and put them on your wall?).
Personally, I think that unless you totally believe in what you’re doing as a company, you’re probably running a scam. How much snake oil do you think snake oil salesmen drank?